Helping families to play their role in education
A school reaches the family or more specifically the parents of its students mainly through the parents’ meetings. JP also uses such meetings and one-to-one interviews. The one-to-one interviews are for solving behavioural problems as well as for planning the development of their child. They are helpful in explaining the rationale behind the innovative activities in the school and also in solving practical difficulties in their implementation. This is useful in obtaining the family’s cooperation in school activities.
Since 1983, JP launched a new initiative regarding parents’ participation. Many mothers are still home-makers. Weekly meetings were started for such home-makers, where the objective was conducting activities for their continuing personality development. That created a favourable atmosphere in the families, supportive of the efforts taken by JP for their children. In 2000, a group of a new generation of parents was started. The home-makers were college graduates. The objective of the group was expanded to ‘self-development for social
change’. This change in objective has been very useful. The involvement of the parents in socially useful activities makes the family atmosphere congruent to the school atmosphere.
JP also helps the families in performing their educational role by giving new shape and meaning to various rituals and sacraments performed in the family as per the needs of the changing social condition.
Meaningful rituals and relevant sacraments
Every civilization in the world has its own culture-fixing mechanisms. The Indian tradition talks of sixteen sacraments to be conducted in the life of an individual. Some say that initially the number was forty-eight, a long time ago. Many out of these, later became redundant and the number came down to sixteen. Now a days the number has reduced to just three, viz. naming ceremony, marriage and the funeral rites. At many places even the three sacraments are not conducted. Some add a fourth one, the initiation into studentship.
The sacraments fall out of practice because they become irrelevant. But it is also found that formal sacraments are as useful as informal experiences in shaping of the mind. If the sacraments are conducted in such a way that there is no excess of cumbersome rituals and there is a sense of purposefulness, they can become watertide events to mark different phases of the life-span and remind of change in one’s role in a new phase of life.
The three household or family sacraments mentionedabove and the fourth educational-cum-family sacrament of initiation into studentship have been re-organized by JP to suit modern times and JP has prepared revised texts for these. In fact, the initiation into studentship has now not remained confined to one caste or religion, not even to only boys.
JP has taken up this work of reformation, because JP feels that this creates a positive attitude in the families which indirectly helps the emotional and character education of their children. JP has suggested one alternative of how tradition can be made relevant to changing times. JP welcomes experimentation and modifications by families in the scripts prepared by it. In this way JP is helping families to fulfil their role in the education of children.
Constructive movements in the society
Families as a unit can and do adopt changes in their thinking and life-style with less resistance. On the other hand a community or society as a whole adopts changes grudgingly and at a very slow pace. But a few individual persons are eager to try out new things and they set the pace of change in the society. The no-changers contribute to the stability of the society. The pro-changers break the inertia of the society. Both are necessary. Those who want to change the educational sector will have to initiate some pro-change movements in the society and set the ball rolling.
As far as rituals besides the family sacraments are concerned, JP first gave one alternative to the Satyanarayan pooja by creating a new text for mahapurush pooja the worship of social and national heroes; both men and women. Later another modified form called matrubhoomi pooja was developed. The latter one was accepted more readily in many towns and cities of Maharashtra. It consists of worshipping the
motherland, India, who is the Mother of all the national heroes and also the foundation for their heroic deeds. The community Ganesh festival in Maharashtra begins with the consecration of the idol of Lord Ganesh. JP has prepared a script for this consecration ceremony also.
The Ganesh festival concludes with a procession at the end of which the idol is immersed in water. The procession attracts diverse elements from the society. It is the time and place for catharsis of pent-up energy of the youth and also for demonstration of art and culture. Sometimes the catharsis takes the upper hand and the atmosphere becomes rowdy, vulgar and indisciplined. JP provided an alternative way of group dancing which is robust and graceful at the same time. The participation of troupes performing this ‘barchi’ dance has taken the place of pride in such processions. Scores of groups of youth have taken clue from JP and introduced this new form of dancing in the processions.
Revised or new scripts have been prepared by JP for various rituals in the rural areas. Villagers coming together to discuss development plans for their villages are encouraged to start the meeting with a short prayer and meditation. Drinking liquor is a major social and economic problem in village life. JP has prepared a script for a rite where the participants wear a necklace of rudraksh beads and resolve to stay away from this vice. This ritual has been used in conjunction with other efforts such as meetings of alcoholics anonymous and picketing in front of liquor stores.
Educational movements in the society
A social or an educational movement is an activity, and the thought or idea behind it, which spreads like a ripple on the surface of a lake. It generates its own momentum and reaches new groups and places in the society and affects the people there. Every activity is a source of non-formal and incidental learning.
As an activity or an idea spreads, people accept it, adopt it, make additions to it, internalize it and start owning it. People forget or do not care to know about the source of the idea. It becomes common intellectual and cultural property. When an activity for non-formal education becomes well-accepted and goes on being modified and adapted it becomes an educational movement. Creating such ripples of educational movements in the society is necessary to make the society receptive to changes in the educational perspective and practices.
Education is not just distrbuting and collecting certificates. It is a universal on-going comprehensive learning. The society has to accept this new orientation. The energy required for this change of view-point can be generated by educational movements.
The personality development workshops or camps were started by JP in Pune sometime in 1972. These camps had a combination of activities for physical, motivational, intellectual, emotional and social development. There had been a few organizations which catered to each of these areas singly. JP was the first institution to offer a combination. These camps have become a regular feature for the last forty years. They have served as a beacon. Now there are hundreds of institutions offering creative combinations of multi-sided personality
development.
All the centres of JP including Pune, Solapur, Nigdi, Shivapur, Velhe, Salumbre, Harali, Ambajogai, Dombivali, Borivali and a few others offer various activities of non-formal education to various age groups and cater to different strata of rural and urban communities.
Chhatra-Prabodhan, a monthly magazine for students, seasonal schools for children of migratory sugar-cane harvesters, rural talent development scheme, self-employment training, competitive exams coaching centre, adolescent girls’ development programme, self-help groups of women, waterusers’ associations, farmers’ clubs, part-time school for child labourers, literacy drive in urban slums, weekly spiritual discourses, gymnasuim, group-singing competitions, principals’ training camp, celebration for pollution-free river are some of
the activities which JP organizes for and in the society in a nonformal way. These are all efforts to change the social ambience which will support JP’s educational philosophy. They also serve as a role model for the student. They show that they have to act to change the situation rather than complaining and grumbling about it.